The manufacturing process of French Roquefort cheese from old recipes

• The production process in France Roquefort cheese from old recipes

Roquefort - kind of cheese, well known gourmets worldwide. Before his refined taste and aroma is difficult to resist, it is no wonder Roquefort called the "king of blue cheeses". Despite the popularity of this product, few people know its history and cooking traditions.

Homeland of this cheese is considered a village Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in southern France. Where to this day preserved ancient traditions of its preparation from whole sheep's milk. It ripens the cheese in natural limestone caves, where the humidity is above 90%. Thanks to these climatic factors, the cheese gets its unique taste.

Roquefort - one of the most famous cheese molds, used for its manufacture fungus Penicillium roqueforti. For noble mold cheese makers left in caves bread for 6-8 weeks, then dried pieces of moldy, milled into flour and the powder was added into the cheese mass. Modern technologies allow to grow mold in the laboratory to ensure the preparation of three million cheeses a year! Yes, that is how much cheese ripening on oak racks in caves.

Of course, Roquefort cheese, as well as any ancient delicacy, has its own legend. If you believe the folklore, once a shepherd, sitting at a traditional meal, he saw a beautiful girl, and not touching his food, ran to catch up with her, to get to know. The end of the story, is not known, but the guy returned to the cave is only a month later, he saw abandoned pieces of cheese and bread, which by that time were covered with mold. He was so hungry that he ventured to taste the missing food, and proved to be the right thing. cheese taste was unusually gentle and refined.

It is unlikely that the reason for the invention of the cheese mold recipe really was love at first sight. But to discover a piece of cheese, covered with mold, the cave could easily. For example, in the writings of Pliny the Elder mentions a rich taste of blue cheese.

It is interesting that on this day the manufacture of the Roquefort cheese is a 7-cheese-making factories. They provide 70% of the cheese produced in the world in this class. Caves in which the cheese matures, open to visitors, and it is truly a paradise for gourmets.